Staff profile: Dr Iain Beith
Position: Head of School of Rehabilitation Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8725 0565
Email: i.beith@sgul.kingston.ac.uk
Biography
Dr Iain Beith is a chartered physiotherapist and has been working in higher education for over 20 years. He has worked in four different institutions supporting educational programmes at foundation degree, BSc, MSc and doctoral levels.
Iain has been research active for most of that time and his area of interest is in pain. He gained his PhD in 2002, having studied reflex control of human trunk muscles and subsequently how pain may affect these reflexes. He is still investigating pain from a number of different perspectives, including imaging of nerves in low back pain and sciatica, clinical assessment of pain and the underlying mechanisms, and how alterations in service delivery can help the management of the approximately 30% of the population in chronic pain. This work is in collaboration with a number of different partners including King’s College London and clinical partners based in south-west London.
Interests
Pain - mechanisms, assessment, and management within different services.
Publications
Article
Beith, Iain D, Kemp, Andrew, Kenyon, Jonathan, Prout, Matthew and Chestnut, Thomas J (2011) Identifying neuropathic back and leg pain: a cross-sectional study. Pain, 152(7), pp. 1511-1516. ISSN (print) 0304-3959
John , E. K. and Beith, I. D. (2007) Can activity within the external abdominal oblique be measured using real-time ultrasound imaging? Clinical Biomechanics, 22(9), pp. 972-979. ISSN (print) 0268-0033
Strutton, Paul H., Beith, Iain D., Theodorou, Sophie, Catley, Maria, McGregor, Alison H. and Davey, Nick J. (2004) Corticospinal activation of internal oblique muscles has a strong ipsilateral component and can be lateralised in man. Experimental Brain Research, 158(4), pp. 474-479. ISSN (print) 0014-4819
Beith, I. D. and Harrison, P. J. (2004) Stretch reflexes in human abdominal muscles. Experimental Brain Research, 159(2), pp. 206-213. ISSN (print) 0014-4819
McMeeken , J. M., Beith, I. D., Newham, D. J., Milligan, P. and Critchley, D. J. (2004) The relationship between EMG and change in thickness of transversus abdominis. Clinical Biomechanics, 19(4), pp. 337-342. ISSN (print) 0268-0033
Beith, I. D., Synott, I. E. and Newman, S. A. (2001) Abdominal muscle activity during the abdominal hollowing manoeuvre in the four point kneeling and prone positions. Manual Therapy, 6(2), pp. 82-87. ISSN (print) 1356-689X
Coates , J. E., McGregor, A. H., Beith, I. D. and Hughes, S. P. F. (2001) The influence of initial resting posture on range of motion of the lumbar spine. Manual Therapy, 6(3), pp. 139-144. ISSN (print) 1356-689X
Grants
- £125,852 project grant from the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC). An investigation into the reflex control of human trunk muscles in people with and without chronic low back pain. Salary costs and purchase of ultrasound imaging equipment.
- £3,965 project grant from the Physiotherapy Research Foundation. An investigation into the reflex control of human trunk muscles in people with and without chronic low back pain. Purchase of upgraded data collection equipment.
- £1,000 summer studentships provided by the School of Biomedical Sciences at King’s College London to investigate aspects of abdominal muscle function and reflex activity.
- Various travel grants to different conferences from pharmaceutical companies (Nurofen travel bursary), the journal Brain, the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC) and The Physiological Society.
